by Sharpe, Jon
Hugging the saddle horn, Fargo lashed his reins. He put all his skill to the test. The crash of growth told him they were after him but he didn’t look back. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
Gradually the sounds of pursuit faded. He slowed to a trot and went another quarter-mile and finally drew rein to give the Ovaro a breather.
As he waited, he pondered.
Things had gone to hell. Constance was dead. Tassy had given her life trying to protect the man she loved. The local law wouldn’t mind if he, too, ended up in an early grave. Practically the whole town was against him. Ironically, the ones who treated him the best were the outlaws. And their leader had turned out to be the most well-liked gent in the territory, and easy to get along with.
Fargo made up his mind. This bounty business wasn’t for him. He’d let Glenda know that he was bowing out and light a shuck. He should stick to what he knew.
The sun was down when he reached Meridian. Lights glowed in windows and a few horses were at hitch rails but otherwise signs of life were few. The marshal’s office was dark.
Fargo was tempted to stop at the Aces High but didn’t. He went up the path to the front door of the house Glenda was renting, and knocked. When no one came he knocked louder.
Someone mumbled something. Feet shuffled and the door opened.
Glenda Blasingame was a pitiful sight. Tears streaked her face and her hair was disheveled. Her dress had a tear. She sniffled and blinked and then seemed to realize who it was. “Skye!” she cried, and to his surprise, she threw herself at him and embraced him as if he were a long-lost relative. “Oh, Skye. You came back.”
Fargo tried to disentangle her but she clung fast and sobbed into his neck. “What the hell?”
“Oh, Skye,” she said again, and sagged.
Scooping her into his arms, Fargo stepped inside, kicked the door shut, and carried her to the parlor. He carefully set her on the settee. The whole time, she wept and shook.
Fargo figured she was still crying over Constance. Patting her hand, he said, “I’ll get you a drink.” A glass of whiskey might help calm her.
“No,” Glenda said, and grabbed his hand in both of hers. “I don’t need that. I need you to go after them.”
“After who?” Fargo said. “Your husband? That’s what I came to talk to you about. I’m through.”
“You can’t be!” Glenda cried, and with fierce strength she pulled him down beside her. “You’re my only hope. I can’t count on Cripdin.”
“Glenda, listen—” Fargo began.
“Hear me out, please,” she begged. “Losing Connie was almost more than I could bear. I can’t lose her, too.”
“Lose who?”
“Jennifer. Who else?” Glenda sniffled and wiped her nose with her sleeve. “He took her, Skye. The bastard marched in here and stole her away. Him and that Mills.”
“Cord took Jennifer?”
Glenda nodded. “He’d stopped at the saloon and heard about Connie and that Tassy. He said it was all my fault. That if I hadn’t sent for you, they’d both still be alive.” She uttered another sob. “He said I wasn’t fit to be their mother. And that he’d be damned if he’d stand by and let Jennifer be hurt, or worse. So he took her.”
“Did she want to go with him?”
“Of course not,” Glenda exploded. “She refused and tried to fight but Mills got her hands behind her back and tied her. I couldn’t do a thing. Cord had hold of me and wouldn’t let go.”
“Damn,” Fargo said.
“As soon as they left I ran to the marshal’s office. Cripdin is off with a posse trying to find her but we both know he won’t.” Glenda clutched at his buckskin shirt. “You’re my only hope. You have to go after them. You have to bring my girl back.”
The hell of it was, Fargo agreed. He felt he owed it to Jennifer after the other night. “I’ll leave at first light.”
“Why not now?”
“I can’t track in the dark,” Fargo replied, “and my horse needs the rest.”
“Oh God.” Glenda pressed her forehead to his chest and closed her eyes. “I shudder to think of her spending the night with those killers and robbers.”
“Your husband won’t let anything happen to her.”
“My former husband,” Glenda said bitterly. “May he rot in hell.”
Fargo shared her sentiment but for a whole different reason. He’d looked forward to being shed of this mess; now he was being drawn back in.
“I pleaded with him not to take her but he refused to listen.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t talk about it.”
Glenda acted as if she hadn’t heard. “I told him that if he was going to assign blame, he should point a finger at himself. He’s the one who dallied with that saloon tart. If he’d stayed true to me it never would have happened.”
“How about some coffee?”
“What I want,” Glenda said, “is my daughter safe and my husband dead. Show him no mercy. When you find them, shoot him, stab him, cave in his skull with a rock. I don’t care. Kill him any way you can and make me the happiest woman alive.”
17
Fargo ate a light supper. As much as he wouldn’t mind some coffin varnish and a game of poker, he turned in early. He stripped off his shirt and boots and stretched out with his hands behind his head. He drifted off easily enough and might have slept the night through if not for the creak of a door hinge.
Fargo awoke with a start. He listened, heard a soft rustle, and started to reach for his gun belt, which he’d placed near his pillow.
“Skye?”
Perfume wreathed him and Glenda sat on the edge of the bed.
“I couldn’t sleep. I’m too worried about Jennifer.”
“Your husband will take good care of her,” Fargo said. Whatever else Cord Blasingame might be, he was devoted to his daughters.
“I wish you’d quit calling him that. He stopped being my husband the day he abandoned me.” Glenda paused. “Would you mind some company?”
Fargo misconstrued and said, “I don’t feel like talking right now.”
“Neither do I.” Glenda stood and pulled back the blanket. “I don’t want to be alone. Please. All I want is to get some sleep.”
“It’s your house,” Fargo said, “your bed.”
“Thank you.”
Sliding in, Glenda lay on her back and primly pulled the blanket to her chin. “I won’t be a bother.”
Fargo grunted and rolled over on his side with his back to her. That should convince her he really did want to sleep. But no sooner did he do so than a hand fell on his shoulder.
“I appreciate this.”
Fargo was getting good at grunting.
“I want to sleep but I’m too overwrought. I don’t know as I can without help.”
“Help how?”
Her hand moved to his arm and gently squeezed. “I was thinking we could—” She stopped. “That is, if you’re not too tired.”
Fargo was never too tired for that. But with one daughter dead and the other taken, he wouldn’t have thought she’d be in the mood.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Glenda said. “I guess I had no right to call Tassy a tart when I’m not much better.”
Fargo rolled onto his back. She immediately shifted and lightly caressed his arm and his side.
“Like that?” she asked.
“I’d have to be a damn fool not to.”
“So would you like to or not? Don’t keep me in suspense.”
Fargo kissed her. She responded passionately, her tongue entwining with his. He cupped a breast and felt her nipple harden. He felt a growing hunger, but at the back of his mind a tiny voice warned that something wasn’t right.
Evidently Glenda sensed his
reserve. Pulling back, she asked, “Is something the matter?”
“Only that you talk too much.” Fargo squeezed harder. He decided to hell with it. If she wanted a poke, he’d be happy to oblige. Whatever she was up to would come out eventually.
Her cotton robe was belted at the waist. A tug, and it parted and fell away. Her tits were twice again as big as Jennifer’s but her nipples were smaller. He pinched and tweaked and she squirmed and cooed.
“God, I want you,” she husked in his ear.
Lowering his mouth to a breast, Fargo nipped and licked and rimmed the tip with his tongue. She arched her back and dug her fingernails into his shoulders.
After a while he dipped lower. Panting with every breath, she cried out at the contact.
Fargo lost track of the time. He had been sleepy but now he wasn’t. He kissed and fondled and was treated in turn, and then he was on his knees between her outspread thighs, about to mount her.
“Yes,” Glenda breathed. “Oh, yes.” Reaching for him, she guided him in, and when their bodies were flush, she sank her teeth into his arm.
The bed bounced fit to bust. Downstairs, the clock chimed three.
Holding her hips, Fargo let himself go. She wanted it; he’d give it to her. He thrust so powerfully, he lifted both of them off the bed.
Glenda reached the summit first. Throwing back her head, she let out a scream. As she subsided, she realized he hadn’t exploded. “What are you—” she said, and got no further.
Fargo erupted. He rammed fit to cleave her in two. He felt her sheath contract, milking him, and she tossed her head from side to side as she gushed anew.
Afterward, covered with sweat, he lay on his side listening to her breathe and wondering what that had been about.
Sleep crept up on him and sucked him under. He might have slept past first light if not for her elbow poking him when she rolled over. He opened his eyes and had to fight to keep them open. His arms and legs leaden, he sat up and yawned and stretched.
Glenda let out a snore, her robe crumpled under her, fanny bare to the world.
Fargo smacked her backside hard enough to leave a handprint.
Screeching, Glenda pushed up onto her elbows and looked around in confusion. “What the hell?” she blurted. She saw him and frowned. “Oh. It’s only you.”
“I love you too,” Fargo said.
“Don’t ever say that, not even in jest,” Glenda angrily scolded. She slid her legs over the side of the bed and shrugged into her robe. “You didn’t have to wake me that way.”
“Someone is a bitch in the morning.”
Glancing sharply over her shoulder, Glenda snapped, “I’ll thank you to be more civil.” She stood. “I deserve it after last night, don’t you think?”
“You deserve this,” Fargo said, and gave her another smack on the rump. He didn’t hold back.
Glenda yelped and jumped and rubbed herself. “Damn you. Stop that!”
“You want me to stop,” Fargo said, “make us some coffee.”
“All you had to do was ask.”
Fargo filled the china bowl with water from the pitcher and washed up. He took his time dressing and tugging into his boots. He jammed his hat on, strapped the Colt around his waist, and ambled downstairs.
The kitchen was fragrant with the scent of brewing coffee, and more.
Glenda bustled about, going from the stove to the counter to the table. “Breakfast will be ready in a few minutes. I didn’t want you to go off hungry.”
Fargo hadn’t asked for food but the sight of scrambled eggs and frying bacon made his stomach growl. Pulling out a chair, he sat. “You’re a fine cook,” he said for want of anything else.
“You’ll need your strength going after Cord and those animals who ride with him.” Glenda looked up from the toast she was buttering. “Play it safe and kill them all. If you don’t, the others will come after you for shooting him.”
“You’re taking it for granted I will.”
Glenda stopped buttering. “Why wouldn’t you? The bounty is for dead or alive. Why make it harder on yourself than it has to be?”
“Dead or alive,” Fargo said. “I get to decide.”
“How can you even think of alive after all he’s done? He deserted me and the girls. He became an outlaw, for God’s sake. Now he’s abducted Jennifer.”
“His daughter.”
“And your friend, or so I thought,” Glenda said. “Or don’t you care what happens to her?”
“Knowing him,” Fargo said, “he hasn’t done anything to harm her.”
Glenda wagged the butter knife at him. “Don’t tell me he’s fooled you too.”
“Fooled me how?”
“That act he puts on. Of being friendly. Of wrapping people around his finger and having them fall over themselves to do things for him.”
It hadn’t seemed like an act to Fargo, and he mentioned as much.
“Then you’re as gullible as everyone else. He did it to me when we were married and I admit I didn’t see through him until near the very end.”
Fargo wondered; could she be right? Was Cord using people? Politicians did it all the time. They cozied up to folks to get their votes. Drummers and clerks and patent medicine men did it to get people to buy what they were selling.
“I expected better of you,” Glenda was saying. “I thought you were sharper.”
“Don’t make more of me than there is.”
“There’s no excuse for being taken in when you know the truth.” Glenda turned to the counter, and the toast. “I’ve said enough. I leave his fate in your hands. See him for what he is and not what he pretends to be and you’ll agree with me. Cord has to die.”
After that somber note they didn’t say another word the whole course of the meal.
Fargo ate heartily. Six eggs, thick bacon strips, two slices of toast and five cups of coffee. He would have eaten more except it would make him sluggish. Pushing back his plate, he said, “That husband of yours was a jackass to leave you.”
Glenda brightened. “What a sweet thing to say. I’ll tell you what. I’ll pack some food for you to take along and you can be on your way.”
It took only a few minutes. She followed him out to the Ovaro and stood with her arms folded while he put the food in his saddlebags.
“Be careful, will you?”
“Goes without saying,” Fargo said.
“He’s slick, Cord is,” Glenda said. “He smiles and acts nice and you think he’s the greatest gent alive. But it’s how he manipulates people. How he bends them to his will.”
“You told me all that inside.”
“I know. I just need you to realize the truth. You can’t bring my Jennifer back if you’re dead, and she’s all I have left in this world.”
Fargo hooked his boot in the stirrup and swung up. The saddle creaked under him, and he lifted the reins. “I can promise you this. If he or any of his men have hurt Jennifer, I’ll hunt the bastards down and bury them.”
Glenda smiled happily. “That’s more like it.”
Fargo gigged the Ovaro and rode around the house to the main street. The few people abroad all stared. Word about him had spread and everyone knew who he was.
He’d meant what he said about the outlaws and Jennifer. If they’d hurt the girl, a lot more blood would be spilled before this was done.
18
They were wily bastards.
Or, rather, Niyan was.
Fargo returned to where the outlaws had been camped when he made his break for freedom. Tracks showed that three riders had come from the direction of town—Cord Blasingame, Jennifer and Mills, he figured—and the whole bunch had gone off to the north. Given how many horses were involved, it should have been easy to track them.
It wasn’t.
Early on, Fargo noticed that they stuck to rocky ground where there was any and the hardest ground where there wasn’t much rock. When they passed through forest they avoided slopes where oaks and other leafy trees grew in abundance and instead favored stretches of pine and spruce. The reason was obvious; the thick cushion of pine needles left few signs.
Niyan’s doing, Fargo reckoned, since an unshod horse was in the lead, and Indians, and those of half-blood, almost always rode horses without shoes.
Whenever the outlaws came to a stream, they’d ride in the middle for a mile or two. A trick that would throw green trackers off their scent but Fargo wasn’t green. He knew that unless a stream was especially swift-flowing, hooves sank so deep that the tracks weren’t always washed away.
Still, it slowed him.
On his third day out of Meridian he was surprised to come across fresh tracks. Not of the outlaws, but of seven other riders, all on shod horses. The seven had crossed the sign left by the outlaws and not realized it. He had a hunch who they were, and on an impulse he reined after them.
About half an hour later, along about noon, he spied smoke. The seven had camped and put coffee on.
Fargo approached at a walk with his hand on his Colt. He wasn’t sure of the reception he’d get. He didn’t hail them. He simply rode on in.
A townsman in a bowler was the first to spot him and jump to his feet, crying, “Someone is coming!”
The rest all stood, several brandishing rifles.
Marshal Theodore Cripdin hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and said, “Well, look who it is.”
Fargo drew rein, and nodded. “Still after them, I see.”
“We’ve crisscrossed these mountains for days now and not come across hide nor hair of the outlaws and that poor girl,” Cripdin said.
Fargo gestured at the coffeepot. “Mind if I join you?”
“Suit yourself,” the lawman said.
Alighting, Fargo fished his tin cup from his saddlebag and stepped to the fire. The townsmen backed away as if afraid of catching a disease. Hunkering, he remarked to Cripdin, “They seem a mite skittish.”